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Cattlemen Safety Bureau
The '''Doolittle Regulators '''or the Cattlemen Safety Bureau is a reknowned law enforcement agency located in the small town of Doolittle, Texas. Led by their chairman; Thaddeus Keating the Regulators patrol the various cattle trails that lead to the markets up North in Fort Stockton and the Permian Basin along with help combat cattle rustling, banditry and attacks from Falfurrian mercenaries. History Foundation The Doolittle Regulators were founded in the Spring of 2240, during the opening of the various cattle trails after the end of the winter months. Their eventual founder, Thaddeus Keating was at the time working as a cattle drover on a drive out of Valle Hermoso, the drive had sought and received protection from the Valle Hermoso Rangers but upon them reaching the river the Rangers turned back, leaving the drive on it own. Heading over the Rio Bravo and into Texas the drive was for a brief moment left unmolested by cattle rustlers and Comancheros, however just outside of the small way station of Doolittle, the cattle drive was ambushed and all but Thaddeus perished in the gunfight. Heading into Doolittle he immediately reported what had happened to the then Sheriff; Jon Hammonds, whose deputies helped get Thaddeus to a doctor and promptly took off after the rustlers, killing most of them as they attempted to wrangle the herd of Longhorns. The deputies herded the Longhorns into town and placed them in the custody of Thaddeus, since their owner had been killed in the ambush he decided to sell off the cattle and take the money for himself. After getting the right amount of Pesos he prepared to head back towards Mexico when he thought up the idea to found a vigilante organization much like the Rangers or Committee. Taking the pesos he promptly founded the Doolittle Regulators and opened the Regulator saloon to act as its headquarters and as a source of revenue. Thaddeus set out to make the Regulators into not just another vigilante organization but to make them into a legitimate law enforcement bureau and thus every new member to the Bureau was given a tin star with the word "Regulator" etched into it and most of the new Regulators were held to a certain degree of professionalism and integrity. Thus working out of their saloon the Regulators started going after cattle rustlers, bandits, Comancheros and taking contracts to escort cattle drives up North towards Fort Stockton and the Permian Basin. Cattlemen-Brahmin Rancher War In the late 2250s, the rivalry between the Mexican Longhorn ranchers and Texan Brahmin ranchers finally boiled over into an all-out conflict with the Falfurrias Cattlemen Association hiring mercenaries to attack cattle drives heading North into Texas. The Regulators saw an opportunity to not just make money but also to grow their reputation and thus began to take on the risky business of escorting cattle drives up to their buyers whether they be in New Hebbron, or in the distant Permian Basin or Oilfields. The business was lucrative as many mercenaries and hired guns who valued their lives would usually depart from the cattle drives before they crossed the Rio Grande, thus allowing for the Regulators to offer their services (at much steeper prices) to the drovers. Escorting the cows up North, the Regulators demonstrated a skill in countering the tactics of the mercenaries hired by Falfurrias. By the time 2259 rolled around the Regulators had become renowned for being the people to go to for cattle drive escorts, and for that reputation they quickly earned the ire of the Falfurrian Brahmin Ranchers, thus the Brahmin ranchers made repeated attempts to eradicate the Bureau, using everything from hired assassins posing as patrons at the saloon, to attempting to bomb the saloon using explosives based off Brahmin dung. Despite these attempts, the Bureau remained intact and their Thaddeus remained untouched by hostile hands, by the time war had ended the Regulators had earned quite a name for themselves and were soon collecting contracts from all over from nervous cattlemen looking to move their beeves up North along the Turtledove Trail. The Scourge of '69 The year that would go on to live in infamy for many cattlemen North of the Rio Bravo was 2269. It was in the Spring of 2269 that the region was plagued by a series of large-scale cattle rustlings and brutal killings that became known as the Scourge of '69. It started in February with a raid on a small isolated ranch outside of Mercedes, the ranch had been run by an old man named Guillermo and his wife Maria and they were known to come into Mercedes every so often to trade some of the corn they grew for supplies and feed, however when they failed to come into town two weeks in a row a search party was sent to their ranch. They found the ranch house burned, the mutilated corpses of Guillermo and Maria and their herd of Brahmin missing. For several weeks search parties, posses and Range Detectives combed the surrounding wastes in search of Guillermo and Maria's killers but they came up empty after two weeks of searching. Many generally accepted that the attack had been perpetrated by Lipan or a far-flung war party of Thunderfoot as the attack had their style written all over the attack, however, others were more skeptical. One man; Bass Carson, a veteran Range Detective who had worked previously in the Corpse Coast for the Falfurrias Cattlemen Association suspected that the attack wasn't perpetrated by the Indians and began to look into the attacks. In the coming months, the border region was shaken by a series of attacks on ranches and cattle herds and brutal murders, eventually, the Regulators got involved and began to coordinate with Bass to search out those who were responsible. After several months of searching, they resolved to try and ambush the rustlers. Posing as a band of drovers moving their herd up the Sand Belt they waited patiently as Bass and a group of volunteers, Regulators and members of the local constabulary setup in the brush around the herd. Eventually, as the fire died, and the men grew sleepy and laid down to sleep did any sign of trouble emerge. There was the roar of an approaching engine and a pre-war truck came barreling through the camp, knocking over the two wagons the men had brought with them. In the bed of the truck sat a dozen armed men who jumped out the back and immediately opened fire on the lawmen. The ambush sprung and a firefight erupted, the outlaws were outnumbered and when their truck was disabled they began to run off into the wastes. Most were killed but three were taken alive and moved back to Doolittle for interrogation. They discovered that the men were in fact from the infamous outlaw gang, the Mason County Jayhawks. After a considerable duration, the outlaws agreed to lead the lawmen to their hideout in exchange for amnesty for their crimes. Leading a posse of some 137 lawmen from the Bureau, local constabularies, and volunteers from the Tejano Company and Rockport Mercenary Guild they were lead into the Texas Hill Country and to a small valley where the gang was keeping their cattle. Overlooking the valley they counted over 2,000 beeves in the valley, ranging from Brahmin to Longhorns and Bighorners. Within the canyon was a small camp where the gang was held up, sending a part of the force to the camp the rest rounded up the cattle and drove them back to Doolittle. However, due to the fact that most of the cattle's previous owners were now dead, it was decided that the cattle be auctioned off and the funds be divided amongst the lawmen who brought the cattle and surviving gangers in. Open Range War of 2273 It was several years after the onset of the Great Northern War that the Bureau was once again faced with brewing regional tensions, piled on top of aggressive marketing tactics by the local Brahmin barons. In 2272 the topic of grazing rights and range ownership became a heated topic of debate among the ranching community as most Brahmin ranchers took a side between the "Free-Grazers" and those ranchers looking to divide the land among themselves were known as the "Copperheads". These two factions quickly began arming themselves and seeking support from every available mercenary, cattlemen's union and the town they could come across and on October 3, 2273, the two forces came to a clash and fighting began to spread all across the Southern Texas wasteland. However it wasn't the fighting that brought them into the conflict, but rather it was the fact that the Bighorner Ranchers of Los Fresnos were getting caught in the middle of the fight. Accepting the contract, the Bureau began sending constables to help escort Bighorner drives going North and South, and to protect the rancher's grazing land and corrals from attack by mercenaries hired by either side. However as time went on and the war progressed into its second and third month the Bureau began to feel the effects of the need for manpower, even working with the Los Fresnos Constable; Henry O'Neil the Bureau found it hard to move the herds up North. With such strained manpower, Thaddeus began to search for more talent and thus hired on ten new constables to help support their operations, upping their manpower to about 55 men and women. However, when this increase in manpower failed to solve their manpower issues Thaddeus again began hiring until eventually the Bureau had gone from 40 constables to about 75 in all. As the war progressed, however, the need for more firepower quickly became apparent, and the need to counter the tactics of the mercenaries that often attacked the cattle drives became equally apparent. In order to do so the Bureau bought out a number of carriages from several different carpenters and using tactics they would develop to great extent later they surprised the ambushers, up-armoring the carriages with armor plating, and then putting men with machine guns in the cabin would allow for a quick and brutal counter to any rustler's ambush. This coupled with the fact that the Bureau's constables began traveling with more firepower, quickly made attacking Bighorner herds out of Los Frenos rather costly for the two sides. However one man,George Harvey, refused to back down, having lost a lot of business to Los Fresno's cheaper Bighorners he began to offer huge sums of money for anyone who would bring in the head or corpse of a Doolittle Regulator. As a result, a number of Regulators and innocent bystanders were killed for a few measly caps, in retaliation, the Doolittle Regulators formed a posse to move against the Harvey Ranch. Being a prominent Open Range Brahmin rancher, Harvey had become one of the most powerful ranchers in all of Texas as he lorded over a herd of some 20,000 Brahmin and claimed a small valley known as Kit's Canyon as his own corral and had a private army of some 130 loyal mercenaries working for him. The posse, number only 85 men rode on the Harvey ranch with the intent to arrest George or to see him hung by the neck, as they arrived the posse came under fire from Harvey's mercenaries and soon a firefight developed. However in the midst of this Thaddeus and several others managed to break into Harvey's home and capture George himself, hauling him out in cuffs and throwing onto a horse and riding off towards Doolittle. There the surviving members of the posse settled down and as they threw George into the town jail, his mercenaries showed up at the town gate. The mercenaries declared that either their boss be released or they'd raze Doolittle to the ground. Sheriff Hammonds wouldn't have any of it and thus responded by shooting down one of the riders. Angered the mercenaries attacked and found themselves unable to breach the town walls or gates, and thus were cut to pieces trying to scramble up the walls by the lawmen. Eventually, the surviving mercs pulled back and after much deliberation, a bounty was presented under the Mexican flag at the front gate. Winning Harvey's freedom and after his release the Open Range War of 2273 quickly came to an end as its chief supporter withdrew himself from the conflict. Present As of 2281, the Regulators have been continuing their work in South Texas and helping the local law enforcement hunt down the ruffians and outlaws of the wasteland. To add their operations have expanded to include towns along the Northwestern Corridor including towns like Greer's Landing and Ugly Buffalo. Organization The organization of the Cattlemen Safety Bureau is very simplistic, Thaddeus Keating is the Bureau's Chairman and thus sits atop the organization's totem pole. Below him are the other 74 constables that act as the lawmen that help keep the trails safe and ensuring that rustlers, bandits, and highwaymen of all kinds are afraid to stick their heads out of their hiding spots. In terms of the individual powers of the constables, a lone constable is essentially his own man, he works an area and has the responsibility to pursue all criminals, help bring in outlaws, make arrests, support local law enforcement and help protect the people of Texas from harm. To add to the responsibilities of being a lawmen a constable can also take on private contracts (so long as they don't violate their primary duty) and can act as bounty hunters and mercenaries when their duties aren't needed at the immediate moment, alongside this a constable also has the dual duty of acting as a Range Detective, going out and searching for lost cattle, scoping out rustler hideouts and tracking hostile wildlife movements. Membership For a person to join the Bureau they need only to apply and pass a few rudimentary tests. These include a marksmanship test, riding course, and of course a test of his tracking, and survival skills in order to discern if he can operate as an individual or needs more guidance from above. Outside of these few tests, the Bureau will hire on anyone and almost everyone that asks to join, however judging just who survives long enough to become a veteran member is something left to the wasteland to decide. Equipment The equipment afforded to the Bureau is primarily your typical cowboy style weaponry with lever action repeaters, revolvers, derringers, a few bolt action rifles are common among the everyday constable but for the most part, your average Regulator is lightly armed. However, these meager weapons are not the only thing that the Regulators are armed with, as they also possess two water cooled .30 Caliber Brownings, along with two cabinets full of "heavier" weapons including; M1A3 Thompsons, Winchester Model 1897 scatterguns, and M14 Semi-Automatic Rifles are among the dominant weapons that the Regulators use for tougher jobs. Activities & Interests The Regulators see themselves as lawmen and have honed their skills to the point where they are the premier law enforcement entity North of the Rio Grande River. They act as lawmen, trail guides, and constables, bounty hunters and Range Detectives for those ranchers in Southern Texas who aren't operating through heinous means or looking to kill their Mexican competitors. Category:Groups Category:Tamaulipas Category:Mexico Category:Texas